Feb 7 2025

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

As I’ve admitted in this newsletter before, I love few things more than getting on an airplane. I know, it’s a bold statement from a climate reporter because of all the associated emissions, but it’s true. So I’m as intrigued as the next person by efforts to revive supersonic flight.

Last week, Boom Supersonic completed its first supersonic test flight of the XB-1 test aircraft. I watched the broadcast live, and the vibe was infectious, watching the hosts’ anticipation during takeoff and acceleration, and then their celebration once it was clear the aircraft had broken the sound barrier.

And yet, knowing what I know about the climate, the promise of a return to supersonic flight is a little tarnished. We’re in a spot with climate change where we need to drastically cut emissions, and supersonic flight would likely take us in the wrong direction. The whole thing has me wondering how fast is fast enough.

The aviation industry is responsible for about 4% of global warming to date. And right now only about 10% of the global population flies on an airplane in any given year. As incomes rise and flight becomes more accessible to more people, we can expect air travel to pick up, and the associated greenhouse gas emissions to rise with it.

If business continues as usual, emissions from aviation could double by 2050, according to a 2019 report from the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Supersonic flight could very well contribute to this trend, because flying faster requires a whole lot more energy—and consequently, fuel. Depending on the estimate, on a per-passenger basis, a supersonic plane will use somewhere between two and nine times as much fuel as a commercial jet today. (The most optimistic of those numbers comes from Boom, and it compares the company’s own planes to first-class cabins.)

In addition to the greenhouse gas emissions from increased fuel use, additional potential climate effects may be caused by pollutants like nitrogen oxides, sulfur, and black carbon being released at the higher altitudes common in supersonic flight. For more details, check out my latest story.

Boom points to sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) as the solution to this problem. After all, these alternative fuels could potentially cut out all the greenhouse gases associated with burning jet fuel.

The problem is, the market for SAFs is practically embryonic. They made up less than 1% of the jet fuel supply in 2024, and they’re still several times more expensive than fossil fuels. And currently available SAFs tend to cut emissions between 50% and 70%—still a long way from net-zero.

Things will (hopefully) progress in the time it takes Boom to make progress on reviving supersonic flight—the company plans to begin building its full-scale plane, Overture, sometime next year. But experts are skeptical that SAF will be as available, or as cheap, as it’ll need to be to decarbonize our current aviation industry, not to mention to supply an entirely new class of airplanes that burn even more fuel to go the same distance.

The Concorde supersonic jet, which flew from 1969 to 2003, could get from New York to London in a little over three hours. I’d love to experience that flight—moving faster than the speed of sound is a wild novelty, and a quicker flight across the pond could open new options for travel.

One expert I spoke to for my story, after we talked about supersonic flight and how it’ll affect the climate, mentioned that he’s actually trying to convince the industry that planes should actually be slowing down a little bit. By flying just 10% slower, planes could see outsized reductions in emissions.

Technology can make our lives better. But sometimes, there’s a clear tradeoff between how technology can improve comfort and convenience for a select group of people and how it will contribute to the global crisis that is climate change.

I’m not a Luddite, and I certainly fly more than the average person. But I do feel like, maybe we should all figure out how to slow down, or at least not tear toward the worst impacts of climate change faster.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

DeepSeek has crashed onto the scene, upending established ideas about the AI industry. One common claim is that the company’s model could drastically reduce the energy needed for AI. But the story is more complicated than that, as my colleague James O’Donnell covered in this sharp analysis.

Keeping up with climate

Donald Trump announced a 10% tariff on goods from China. Plans for tariffs on Mexico and Canada were announced, then quickly paused, this week as well. Here’s more on what it could mean for folks in the US. (NPR)
→ China quickly hit back with mineral export curbs on materials including tellurium, a key ingredient in some alternative solar panels. (Mining.com)
→ If the tariffs on Mexico and Canada go into effect, they’d hit supply chains for the auto industry, hard. (Heatmap News)

Researchers are scrambling to archive publicly available data from agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Trump administration has directed federal agencies to remove references to climate change. (Inside Climate News)
→ As of Wednesday morning, it appears that live data that tracks carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is no longer accessible on NOAA’s website. (Try for yourself here)

Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” entered the NOAA offices on Wednesday morning, inciting concerns about plans for the agency. (The Guardian)

The National Science Foundation, one of the US’s leading funders of science and engineering research, is reportedly planning to lay off between 25% and 50% of its staff. (Politico)

Our roads aren’t built for the conditions being driven by climate change. Warming temperatures and changing weather patterns are hammering roads, driving up maintenance costs. (Bloomberg)

Researchers created a new strain of rice that produces much less methane when grown in flooded fields. The variant was made with traditional crossbreeding. (New Scientist)

Oat milk maker Oatly is trying to ditch fossil fuels in its production process with industrial heat pumps and other electrified technology. But getting away from gas in food and beverage production isn’t easy. (Canary Media)

A new 3D study of the Greenland Ice Sheet reveals that crevasses are expanding faster than previously thought. (Inside Climate News)

In other ice news, an Arctic geoengineering project shut down over concerns for wildlife. The nonprofit project was experimenting with using glass beads to slow melting, but results showed it was a threat to food chains. (New Scientist)

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Jan 31 2025

Three questions about the future of US climate tech under Trump

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Donald Trump has officially been in office for just over a week, and the new administration has hit the ground running with a blizzard of executive orders and memos.

Some of the moves could have major effects for climate change and climate technologies—for example, one of the first orders Trump signed signaled his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the major international climate treaty.

The road map for withdrawing from the Paris agreement is clear, but not all the effects of these orders are quite so obvious. There’s a whole lot of speculation about how far these actions reach, which ones might get overturned, and generally what comes next. Here are some of the crucial threads that I’m going to be following.

Will states be able to set their own rules on electric vehicles?

It’s clear that Donald Trump isn’t a fan of electric vehicles. One of the executive orders issued on his first day in office promised to eliminate the “electric vehicle (EV) mandate.”

The federal government under Biden didn’t actually have an EV mandate in place—rather, Trump is targeting national support programs, including subsidies that lower the cost of EVs for drivers and support building public chargers. But that’s just the beginning, because the executive order will go after states that have set their own rules on EVs.

While the US Environmental Protection Agency does set some rules around EVs through what are called tailpipe standards, last year California was granted a waiver that allows the state to set its own, stricter rules. The state now requires that all vehicles sold there must be zero-emissions by 2035. More than a dozen states quickly followed suit, setting a target to transition to zero-emissions vehicles within the next decade. That commitment was a major signal to automakers that there will be demand for EVs, and a lot of it, soon.

Trump appears to be coming after that waiver, and with it California’s right to set its own targets on EVs. We’ll likely see court battles over this, and experts aren’t sure how it’s going to shake out.

What will happen to wind projects?

Wind energy was one of the most explicit targets for Trump on the campaign trail and during his first few days in office. In one memo, the new administration paused all federal permits, leases, and loans for all offshore and onshore wind projects.

This doesn’t just affect projects on federal lands or waters—nearly all wind projects typically require federal permits, so this could have a wide effect.

Even if the order is temporary or doesn’t hold up in court, it could be enough to chill investment in a sector that’s already been on shaky ground. As I reported last year, rising costs and slow timelines were already throwing offshore wind projects off track in the US. Investment has slowed since I published that story, and now, with growing political opposition, things could get even rockier.

One major question is how much this will slow down existing projects, like the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, which got the green light from the Biden administration before he left office. As one source told the Washington Post, the new administration may try to go after leases and permits that have already been issued, but “there may be insufficient authority to do so.”

What about the money?

In an executive order last week, the Trump administration called for a pause on handing out the funds that are legally set aside under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That includes hundreds of billions of dollars for climate research and infrastructure.

This week, a memo from the White House called for a wider pause on federal grants and loans. This goes way beyond climate spending and could affect programs like Medicaid. There’s been chaos since that was first reported; nobody seems to agree on what exactly will be affected or how long the pause was supposed to last, and as of Tuesday evening, a federal judge had blocked that order.

In any case, all these efforts to pause, slow, or stop federal spending will be a major source of fighting going forward. As for effects on climate technology, I think the biggest question is how far the new administration can and will go to block spending that’s already been designated by Congress. There could be political consequences—most funds from the Inflation Reduction Act have gone to conservative-leaning states.

As I wrote just after the election in November, Donald Trump’s return to office means a sharp turn for the US on climate policy, and we’re seeing that start to play out very quickly. I’ll be following it all, but I’d love to hear from you. What do you most want to know more about? What questions do you have? If you work in the climate sector, how are you seeing your job affected? You can email me at casey.crownhart@technologyreview.com, message me on Bluesky, or reach me on Signal: @casey.131.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

DeepSeek has stormed onto the AI scene. The company released a new reasoning model, called DeepSeek R1, which it claims can surpass the performance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1. The model appears to be incredibly efficient, which upends the idea that huge amounts of computing power, and energy, are needed to drive the AI revolution.

For more, check out this story on the company and its model from my colleague Caiwei Chen, and this look at what it means for the AI industry and its energy claims from James O’Donnell.

Keeping up with climate

A huge surge in clean energy caused China’s carbon emissions to level off in 2024. Whether the country’s emissions peak and begin to fall for good depends on what wins in a race between clean-energy additions and growth in energy demand. (Carbon Brief)

In a bit of good news, heat pumps just keep getting hotter. The appliances outsold gas furnaces in the US last year by a bigger margin than ever. (Canary Media)
→ Here’s everything you need to know about heat pumps and how they work. (MIT Technology Review)

People are seeking refuge from floods in Kentucky’s old mountaintop mines. Decades ago, the mines were a cheap source of resources but devastated local ecosystems. Now people are moving in. (New York Times)

An Australian company just raised $20 million to use AI to search for key minerals. Earth AI has already discovered significant deposits of palladium, gold, and molybdenum. (Heatmap News)

Some research suggests a key ocean current system is slowing down, but a new study adds to the case that there’s no cause to panic … yet. The new work suggests that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, hasn’t shown long-term weakening over the past 60 years. (Washington Post)
→ Efforts to observe and understand the currents have shown they’re weirder and more unpredictable than expected. (MIT Technology Review)

Floating solar panels could be a major resource in US energy. A new report finds that federal reservoirs could hold enough floating solar to produce nearly 1,500 terawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power 100 million homes each year. (Canary Media)

What sparked the LA wildfires is still a mystery, but AI is hunting for clues. Better understanding of what causes fires could be key in efforts to stop future blazes. (Grist)

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Jan 24 2025

Why the next energy race is for underground hydrogen

It might sound like something straight out of the 19th century, but one of the most cutting-edge areas in energy today involves drilling deep underground to hunt for materials that can be burned for energy. The difference is that this time, instead of looking for fossil fuels, the race is on to find natural deposits of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is already a key ingredient in the chemical industry and could be used as a greener fuel in industries from aviation and transoceanic shipping to steelmaking. Today, the gas needs to be manufactured, but there’s some evidence that there are vast deposits underground.

I’ve been thinking about underground resources a lot this week, since I’ve been reporting a story about a new startup, Addis Energy. The company is looking to use subsurface rocks, and the conditions down there, to produce another useful chemical: ammonia. In an age of lab-produced breakthroughs, it feels like something of a regression to go digging for resources, but looking underground could help meet energy demand while also addressing climate change.

It’s rare that hydrogen turns up in oil and gas operations, and for decades, the conventional wisdom has been that there aren’t large deposits of the gas underground. Hydrogen molecules are tiny, after all, so even if the gas was forming there, the assumption was that it would just leak out.

However, there have been somewhat accidental discoveries of hydrogen over the decades, in abandoned mines or new well sites. There are reports of wells that spewed colorless gas, or flames that burned gold. And as people have looked more intentionally for hydrogen, they’ve started to find it.

As it turns out, hydrogen tends to build up in very different rocks from those that host oil and gas deposits. While fossil-fuel prospecting tends to focus on softer rocks, like organic-rich shale, hydrogen seems most plentiful in iron-rich rocks like olivine. The gas forms when chemical reactions at elevated temperature and pressure underground pull water apart. (There’s also likely another mechanism that forms hydrogen underground, called radiolysis, where radioactive elements emit radiation that can split water.)

Some research has put the potential amount of hydrogen available at around a trillion tons—plenty to feed our demand for centuries, even if we ramp up use of the gas.

The past few years have seen companies spring up around the world to try to locate and tap these resources. There’s an influx in Australia, especially the southern part of the country, which seems to have conditions that are good for making hydrogen. One startup, Koloma, has raised over $350 million to aid its geologic hydrogen exploration.

There are so many open questions for this industry, including how much hydrogen is actually going to be accessible and economical to extract. It’s not even clear how best to look for the gas today; researchers and companies are borrowing techniques and tools from the oil and gas industry, but there could be better ways.

It’s also unknown how this could affect climate change. Hydrogen itself may not warm the planet, but it can contribute indirectly to global warming by extending the lifetime of other greenhouse gases. It’s also often found with methane, a super-powerful greenhouse gas that could do major harm if it leaks out of operations at a significant level.

There’s also the issue of transportation: Hydrogen isn’t very dense, and it can be difficult to store and move around. Deposits that are far away from the final customers could face high costs that might make the whole endeavor uneconomical.

But this whole area is incredibly exciting, and researchers are working to better understand it. Some are looking to expand the potential pool of resources by pumping water underground to stimulate hydrogen production from rocks that wouldn’t naturally produce the gas.

There’s something fascinating to me about using the playbook of the oil and gas industry to develop an energy source that could actually help humanity combat climate change. It could be a strategic move to address energy demand, since a lot of expertise has accumulated over the roughly 150 years that we’ve been digging up fossil fuels.

After all, it’s not digging that’s the problem—it’s emissions.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Donald Trump officially took office on Monday and signed a flurry of executive orders. Here are a few of the most significant ones for climate:

Trump announced his intention to once again withdraw from the Paris agreement. After a one-year waiting period, the world’s largest economy will officially leave the major international climate treaty. (New York Times)

The president also signed an order that pauses lease sales for offshore wind power projects in federal waters. It’s not clear how much the office will be able to slow projects that already have their federal permits. (Associated Press)

Another executive order, titled “Unleashing American Energy,” broadly signals a wide range of climate and energy moves.
→ One section ends the “EV mandate.” The US government doesn’t have any mandates around EVs, but this bit is a signal of the administration’s intent to roll back policies and funding that support adoption of these vehicles. There will almost certainly be court battles. (Wired)
→ Another section pauses the disbursement of tens of billions of dollars for climate and energy. The spending was designated by Congress in two of the landmark laws from the Biden administration, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Again, experts say we can likely expect legal fights. (Canary Media)

Keeping up with climate

The Chinese automaker BYD built more electric vehicles in 2024 than Tesla did. The data signals a global shift to cheaper EVs and the continued dominance of China in the EV market. (Washington Post)

A pair of nuclear reactors in South Carolina could get a second chance at life. Construction halted at the VC Summer plant in 2017, $9 billion into the project. Now the site’s owner wants to sell. (Wall Street Journal)

→ Existing reactors are more in-demand than ever, as I covered in this story about what’s next for nuclear power. (MIT Technology Review)

In California, charging depots for electric trucks are increasingly choosing to cobble together their own power rather than waiting years to connect to the grid. These solar- and wind-powered microgrids could help handle broader electricity demand. (Canary Media)

Wildfires in Southern California are challenging even wildlife that have adapted to frequent blazes. As fires become more frequent and intense, biologists worry about animals like mountain lions. (Inside Climate News)

Experts warn that ash from the California wildfires could be toxic, containing materials like lead and arsenic. (Associated Press)

Burning wood for power isn’t necessary to help the UK meet its decarbonization goals, according to a new analysis. Biomass is a controversial green power source that critics say contributes to air pollution and harms forests. (The Guardian)

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Jan 18 2025

Interest in nuclear power is surging. Is it enough to build new reactors?

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Lately, the vibes have been good for nuclear power. Public support is building, and public and private funding have made the technology more economical in key markets. There’s also a swell of interest from major companies looking to power their data centers.

These shifts have been great for existing nuclear plants. We’re seeing efforts to boost their power output, extend the lifetime of old reactors, and even reopen facilities that have shut down. That’s good news for climate action, because nuclear power plants produce consistent electricity with very low greenhouse-gas emissions.

I covered all these trends in my latest story, which digs into what’s next for nuclear power in 2025 and beyond. But as I spoke with experts, one central question kept coming up for me: Will all of this be enough to actually get new reactors built?

To zoom in on some of these trends, let’s take a look at the US, which has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world (and the oldest, with an average age of over 42 years).

In recent years we’ve seen a steady improvement in public support for nuclear power in the US. Today, around 56% of Americans support more nuclear power, up from 43% in 2020, according to a Pew R esearch poll.

The economic landscape has also shifted in favor of the technology. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes tax credits specifically for operating nuclear plants, aimed at keeping them online. Qualifying plants can receive up to $15 per megawatt-hour, provided they meet certain labor requirements. (For context, in 2021, its last full year of operation, Palisades in Michigan generated over 7 million megawatt-hours.)

Big Tech has also provided an economic boost for the industry—tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon are all making deals to get in on nuclear.

These developments have made existing (or recently closed) nuclear power plants a hot commodity. Plants that might have been candidates for decommissioning just a few years ago are now candidates for license extension. Plants that have already shut down are seeing a potential second chance at life.

There’s also the potential to milk more power out of existing facilities through changes called uprates, which basically allow existing facilities to produce more energy by tweaking existing instruments and power generation systems. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved uprates totaling six gigawatts over the past two decades. That’s a small but certainly significant fraction of the roughly 97 gigawatts of nuclear on the grid today.

Any reactors kept online, reopened, or ramped up spell good news for emissions. But expanding the nuclear fleet in the US will require not just making the most of existing assets, but building new reactors.

We’ll probably also need new reactors just to maintain the current fleet, since so many reactors are scheduled to be retired in the next couple of decades. Will the enthusiasm for keeping old plants running also translate into building new ones?

In much of the world (China being a notable exception), building new nuclear capacity has historically been expensive and slow. It’s easy to point at Plant Vogtle in the US: The third and fourth reactors at that facility began construction in 2009. They were originally scheduled to start up in 2016 and 2017, at a cost of around $14 billion. They actually came online in 2023 and 2024, and the total cost of the project was north of $30 billion.

Some advanced technology has promised to fix the problems in nuclear power. Small modular reactors could help cut cost and construction times, and next-generation reactors promise safety and efficiency improvements that could translate to cheaper, quicker construction. Realistically, though, getting these first-of-their-kind projects off the ground will still require a lot of money and a sustained commitment to making them happen. “The next four years are make or break for advanced nuclear,” says Jessica Lovering, cofounder at the Good Energy Collective, a policy research organization that advocates for the use of nuclear energy.

There are a few factors that could help the progress we’ve seen recently in nuclear extend to new builds. For one, public support from the US Department of Energy includes not only tax credits but public loans and grants for demonstration projects, which can be a key stepping stone to commercial plants that generate electricity for the grid.

Changes to the regulatory process could also help. The Advance Act, passed in 2024, aims at sprucing up the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the hopes of making the approval process more efficient (currently, it can take up to five years to complete).

“If you can see the NRC really start to modernize toward a more efficient, effective, and predictable regulator, it really helps the case for a lot of these commercial projects, because the NRC will no longer be seen as this barrier to innovation,” says Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit think tank. We should start to see changes from that legislation this year, though what happens could depend on the Trump administration.

The next few years are crucial for next-generation nuclear technology, and how the industry fares between now and the end of the decade could be very telling when it comes to how big a role this technology plays in our longer-term efforts to decarbonize energy.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Devastating wildfires have been ravaging Southern California. Here’s a roundup of some key stories about the blazes.

→ Strong winds have continued this week, bringing with them the threat of new fires. Here’s a page with live updates on the latest. (Washington Post)

→ Officials are scouring the spot where the deadly Palisades fire started to better understand how it was sparked. (New York Times)

→ Climate change didn’t directly start the fires, but global warming did contribute to how intensely they burned and how quickly they spread. (Axios)

→The LA fires show that controlled burns aren’t a cure-all when it comes to preventing wildfires. (Heatmap News)

→ Seawater is a last resort when it comes to fighting fires, since it’s corrosive and can harm the environment when dumped on a blaze. (Wall Street Journal)

Keeping up with climate

US emissions cuts stalled last year, despite strong growth in renewables. The cause: After staying flat or falling for two decades, electricity demand is rising. (New York Times)

With Donald Trump set to take office in the US next week, many are looking to state governments as a potential seat of climate action. Here’s what to look for in states including Texas, California, and Massachusetts. (Inside Climate News)

The US could see as many as 80 new gas-fired power plants built by 2030. The surge comes as demand for power from data centers, including those powering AI, is ballooning. (Financial Times)

Global sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids were up 25% in 2024 from the year before. China, the world’s largest EV market, is a major engine behind the growth. (Reuters)

A massive plant to produce low-emissions steel could be in trouble. Steelmaker SSAB has pulled out of talks on federal funding for a plant in Mississippi. (Canary Media)

Some solar panel companies have turned to door-to-door sales. Things aren’t always so sunny for those involved. (Wired)

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Jan 12 2025

2025 is a critical year for climate tech

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

I love the fresh start that comes with a new year. And one thing adding a boost to my January is our newest list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies.

In case you haven’t browsed this year’s list or a previous version, it features tech that’s either breaking into prominence or changing society. We typically recognize a range of items running from early-stage research to consumer technologies that folks are getting their hands on now.

As I was looking over the finished list this week, I was struck by something: While there are some entries from other fields that are three or even five years away, all the climate items are either newly commercially available or just about to be. It’s certainly apt, because this year in particular seems to be bringing a new urgency to the fight against climate change. We’re facing global political shifts and entering the second half of the decade. It’s time for these climate technologies to grow up and get out there.

Green steel

Steel is a crucial material for buildings and vehicles, and making it accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. New manufacturing methods could be a huge part of cleaning up heavy industry, and they’re just on the cusp of breaking into the commercial market.

One company, called Stegra, is close to starting up the world’s first commercial green steel plant, which will make the metal using hydrogen from renewable sources. (You might know this company by its former name, H2 Green Steel, as we included it on our 2023 list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.)

When I first started following Stegra a few years ago, its plans for a massive green steel plant felt incredibly far away. Now the company says it’s on track to produce steel at the factory by next year.

The biggest challenge in this space is money. Building new steel plants is expensive—Stegra has raised almost $7 billion. And the company’s product will be more expensive than conventional material, so it’ll need to find customers willing to pay up (so far, it has).

There are other efforts to clean up steel that will all face similar challenges around money, including another play in Sweden called Hybrit and startups like Boston Metal and Electra, which use different processes. Read more about green steel, and the potential obstacles it faces as we enter a new phase of commercialization, in this short blurb and in this longer feature about Stegra.

Cow burp remedies

Humans love burgers and steaks and milk and cheese, so we raise a whole bunch of cows. The problem is, these animals are among a group with a funky digestion process that produces a whole lot of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas). A growing number of companies are trying to develop remedies that help cut down on their methane emissions.

This is one of my favorite items on the list this year (and definitely my favorite illustration—at the very least, check out this blurb to enjoy the art).

There’s already a commercially available option right now: a feed additive called Bovaer from DSM-Firmenich that the company says can cut methane emissions by 30% in dairy cattle, and more in beef cattle. Startups are right behind with their own products, some of which could prove even better.

A key challenge all these companies face moving forward is acceptance: from regulatory agencies, farmers, and consumers. Some companies still need to go through lengthy and often expensive tests to show that their products are safe and effective. They’ll also need to persuade farmers to get on board. Some might also face misinformation that’s causing some consumers to protest these new additives.

Cleaner jet fuel

While planes crisscrossing the world are largely powered by fossil fuels, some alternatives are starting to make their appearance in aircraft.

New fuels, today mostly made from waste products like used cooking oil, can cut down emissions from air travel. In 2024, they made up about 0.5% of the fuel supply. But new policies could help these fuels break into new prominence, and new options are helping to widen their supply.

The key challenge here is scale. Global demand for jet fuel was about 100 billion gallons last year, so we’ll need a whole lot of volume from new producers to make a dent in aviation’s emissions.

To illustrate the scope, take LanzaJet’s new plant, opened in 2024. It’s the first commercial-scale facility that can make jet fuel with ethanol, and it has a capacity of about 9 million gallons annually. So we would need about 10,000 of those plants to meet global demand—a somewhat intimidating prospect. Read more in my write-up here.

From cow burps to jet fuel to green steel, there’s a huge range of tech that’s entering a new stage of deployment and will need to face new challenges in the next few years. We’ll be watching it all—thanks for coming along.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

EVs are (mostly) set for solid growth in 2025, as my colleague James Temple covers in his newest story. Check it out for more about what’s next for electric vehicles, including what we might expect from a new administration in the US and how China is blowing everyone else out of the water.

Keeping up with climate

Winter used to be the one time of year that California didn’t have to worry about wildfires. A rapidly spreading fire in the southern part of the state is showing that’s not the case anymore. (Bloomberg)

Tesla’s annual sales decline for the first time in over a decade. Deliveries were lower than expected for the final quarter of the year. (Associated Press)

Meanwhile, in China, EVs are set to overtake traditional cars in sales years ahead of schedule. Forecasts suggest that EVs could account for 50% of car sales this year. (Financial Times)

KoBold metals raised $537 million in funding to use AI to mine copper. The funding pushes the startup’s valuation to $2.96 billion. (TechCrunch)
→ Read this profile of the company from 2021 for more. (MIT Technology Review)

We finally have the final rules for a tax credit designed to boost hydrogen in the US. The details matter here. (Heatmap)

China just approved the world’s most expensive infrastructure project. The hydroelectric dam could produce enough power for 300 million people, triple the capacity of the current biggest dam. (Economist)

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels on the White House’s roof. Although they came down just a few years later, the panels lived multiple lives afterward. I really enjoyed reading about this small piece of Carter’s legacy in the wake of his passing. (New York Times)

An open pit mine in California is the only one in the US mining and extracting rare earth metals including neodymium and praseodymium. This is a fascinating look at the site. (IEEE Spectrum)
→ I wrote about efforts to recycle rare earth metals, and what it means for the long-term future of metal supply, in a feature story last year. (MIT Technology Review)

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Dec 13 2024

China banned exports of a few rare minerals to the US. Things could get messier.

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

I’ve thought more about gallium and germanium over the last week than I ever have before (and probably more than anyone ever should).

As you may already know, China banned the export of those materials to the US last week and placed restrictions on others. The move is just the latest drama in escalating trade tensions between the two countries.

While the new export bans could have significant economic consequences, this might be only the beginning. China is a powerhouse, and not just in those niche materials—it’s also a juggernaut in clean energy, and particularly in battery supply chains. So what comes next could have significant consequences for EVs and climate action more broadly.

A super-quick catch-up on the news here: The Biden administration recently restricted exports of chips and other technology that could help China develop advanced semiconductors. Also, president-elect Donald Trump has floated all sorts of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Apparently in response to some or all of this, China banned the export of gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials used in manufacturing, and said it may further restrict graphite sales. The materials are all used for both military and civilian technologies, and significantly, gallium and germanium are used in semiconductors.

It’s a ramp-up from last July, when China placed restrictions on gallium and germanium exports after enduring years of restrictions by the US and its Western allies on cutting-edge technology. (For more on the details of China’s most recent move, including potential economic impacts, check out the full coverage from my colleague James Temple.)

What struck me about this news is that this could be only the beginning, because China is central to many of the supply chains snaking around the globe.

This is no accident—take gallium as an example. The metal is a by-product of aluminum production from bauxite ore. China, as the world’s largest aluminum producer, certainly has a leg up to be a major player in the niche material. But other countries could produce gallium, and I’m sure more will. China has a head start because it invested in gallium separation and refining technologies.

A similar situation exists in the battery world. China is a dominant player all over the supply chain for lithium-ion batteries—not because it happens to have the right metals on its shores (it doesn’t), but because it’s invested in extraction and processing technologies.

Take lithium, a crucial component in those batteries. China has around 8% of the world’s lithium reserves but processes about 58% percent of the world’s lithium supply. The situation is similar for other key battery metals. Nickel that’s mined in Indonesia goes to China for processing, and the same goes for cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Over the past two decades, China has thrown money, resources, and policy behind electric vehicles. Now China leads the world in EV registrations, many of the largest EV makers are Chinese companies, and the country is home to a huge chunk of the supply chain for the vehicles and their batteries.

As the world begins a shift toward technologies like EVs, it’s becoming clear just how dominant China’s position is in many of the materials crucial to building that tech.

Lithium prices have dropped by 80% over the past year, and while part of the reason is a slowdown in EV demand, another part is that China is oversupplying lithium, according to US officials. By flooding the market and causing prices to drop, China could make it tougher for other lithium processors to justify sticking around in the business.

The new graphite controls from China could wind up affecting battery markets, too. Graphite is crucial for lithium-ion batteries, which use the material in their anodes. It’s still not clear whether the new bans will affect battery materials or just higher-purity material that’s used in military applications, according to reporting from Carbon Brief.

To this point, China hasn’t specifically banned exports of key battery materials, and it’s not clear exactly how far the country would go. Global trade politics are delicate and complicated, and any move that China makes in battery supply chains could wind up coming back to hurt the country’s economy.

But we could be entering into a new era of material politics. Further restrictions on graphite, or moves that affect lithium, nickel, or copper, could have major ripple effects around the world for climate technology, because batteries are key not only for electric vehicles, but increasingly for our power grids.

While it’s clear that tensions are escalating, it’s still unclear what’s going to happen next. The vibes, at best, are uncertain, and this sort of uncertainty is exactly why so many folks in technology are so focused on how to diversify global supply chains. Otherwise, we may find out just how tangled those supply chains really are, and what happens when you yank on threads that run through the center of them.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Each year we release a list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies, and it’s nearly time for the 2025 edition. But before we announce the picks, here are a few things that didn’t make the cut.

A couple of interesting ones on the cutting-room floor here, including eVTOLs, electric aircraft that can take off and land like helicopters. For more on why the runway is looking pretty long for electric planes (especially ones with funky ways to move through the skies), check out this story from last year.

Keeping up with climate

Denmark received no bids in its latest offshore wind auction. It’s a disappointing result for the birthplace of offshore wind power. (Reuters)

Surging methane emissions could be the sign of a concerning shift for the climate. A feedback loop of emissions from the Arctic and a slowdown in how the powerful greenhouse gas breaks down could spell trouble. (Inside Climate News)

Battery prices are dropping faster than expected. Costs for lithium-ion packs just saw their steepest drop since 2017. (Electrek)

This fusion startup is rethinking how to configure its reactors by floating powerful magnets in the middle of the chamber. This sounds even more like science fiction than most other approaches to fusion. (IEEE Spectrum)

The US plans to put monarch butterflies on a list of threatened species. Temperature shifts brought on by climate change could wreak havoc with the insects’ migration. (Associated Press)

Sources close to Elon Musk say he’s undergone quite a shift on climate change, morphing from “environmental crusader to critic of dire climate predictions.” (Washington Post)

Google has a $20 billion plan to build data centers and clean power together. “Bring your own power” is an interesting idea, but not a tested prospect just yet. (Canary Media)

The Franklin Fire in Los Angeles County sparked Monday evening and quickly grew into a major blaze. At the heart of the fire’s rapid spread: dry weather and Santa Ana winds. (Scientific American)

Places in the US that are most at risk for climate disasters are also most at risk for insurance hikes. Check out these great data visualizations on insurance and climate change. (The Guardian)

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Dec 8 2024

Alternative meat could help the climate. Will anyone eat it?

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US, and I had hearty helpings of ham and turkey alongside my mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

Meat is often the star on our plates, but our love of animal-based foods is a problem for the climate. Depending on how you count it up, livestock accounts for somewhere between 10% and 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

A growing number of alternative foods seek to mimic or replace options that require raising and slaughtering animals. These include plant-based products and newly approved cultivated (or lab-grown) meats. An increasing number of companies are even raising microbes in the lab in the hopes that we’ll add them to the menu, as I covered in a story this week.

But as one of my colleagues always puts it when I tell him about some alternative food product, the key question is, will anyone eat it?

Food might just be one of the trickiest climate problems to solve. Technically, none of us has to be eating any of the highest-emissions foods—like beef—that are worst for the climate. But what we eat is deeply personal, and it’s often tied up with our culture and our social lives. Many people want hamburgers at a barbecue and nice steak dinners.

The challenge of our food system’s climate impact is only getting more tricky: richer countries tend to eat more meat, and so as populations grow and the standard of living rises around the world, we’re going to see emissions from livestock production rise, too.

In an effort to combat that trend, alternative food products aim to deliver foods similar to the ones we know and love with less harmful effects on the climate. Plant-based options like those from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have exploded in recent years, finding their way into supermarkets and even onto the menus of major fast-food brands like Burger King.

The problem is, a lot of alternative products have been struggling lately. Unit sales of meat alternatives in the US were down by 26% between 2021 and 2023, and fewer households are buying plant-based alternative meat options, according to a report from the Good Food Institute. Consumers say that alternatives still aren’t up to par on taste and price, two key factors that determine what people decide to eat.

So companies are racing to invent better products. I’ve spent a lot of time covering cultivated (or lab-grown) meats. To make these products, animal cells are grown in the lab and processed into things like chicken nuggets. Two companies got approval to sell cultivated chicken in the US in 2023, and we’ve seen both offer their products in limited runs at high-end restaurants.

But these products are still not quite the same thing as the meat we’re used to. When I tried a burger that contained cells grown in a lab, it was similar to plant-based ones that have a softer texture than I’m used to. Chicken from Upside Foods, served at a Michelin-starred restaurant, had similar textural differences. And these products are still only available at very small scales, if at all, and they’re expensive.

One key issue that comes up again and again as I report on these new products is what to call them. The industry strongly prefers cultivated, not “lab-grown.” Probably better to not remind people that they’re eating something grown in vats in a laboratory. As the companies that make these products often point out, we don’t typically use this sort of language for the animal-based products we’re used to. You’d never find the phrase “slaughtered baby cow” on a menu, just “veal.”

I was thinking about this issue of language and marketing again recently as I reported a story about a company looking to grow bacteria, dry it, and sell it to feed animals or people. I found myself a little weirded out by the prospect of dried microbe powder finding its way into my diet. But I don’t have a problem drinking wine or eating cheese, two products that rely on microbes and a fermentation process to exist.

Maybe LanzaTech will come up with a marketing plan that makes their microbe powder an easy addition to my Thanksgiving table. Ultimately though, no matter how well they’re marketed, I’m not sure how much we can rely on alternative products to solve the climate challenge that is our food system.

As is often the case when it comes to addressing climate change, we’re going to need not only some behavioral changes, but also technical solutions like cattle burp pills and new fertilizer options, as well as policy to help nudge our food system in the right direction.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Keeping up with climate

China announced it would ban the export to the US of several rare minerals that are crucial in technology like semiconductors. The move follows efforts by the US to shift supply chains away from China. (New York Times)

Donald Trump has pledged to ramp up tariffs on Chinese goods, while other nations around the world have already put such policies in place. (Rest of World)

Australia is on track to meet its 2030 emissions target. The country’s climate pollution is projected to fall more than 42% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. (Bloomberg)

Talks to form an international plastic treaty fell apart this week. Some countries favored cutting down plastic production, while others, including oil-rich nations, pushed back. (Washington Post)

The US Department of Energy announced a nearly $7 billion loan to Stellantis and Samsung for two battery factories that will supply batteries for EVs. (New York Times)
→ That follows a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian to help the company build a stalled factory in Georgia. (Associated Press)
→ The Biden administration is racing to lock in loans and safeguard them against rollbacks before Donald Trump takes office in January. (E&E News)

California could increase use of ethanol, a move the state says could lower gas prices. But experts warn that expanded use of ethanol made from corn can have negative consequences for climate progress and the environment. (Inside Climate News)

Norway’s government is blocking plans to mine the sea bed. There were plans to begin offering permits in the first half of 2025, and preparations will continue during the suspension. (Reuters)
→ These deep-sea “potatoes” could be the future of mining for battery materials. (MIT Technology Review)

A decade ago, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific shot up in a dramatic marine heat wave. Now, scientists are looking for clues in that event to understand what rising temperatures will mean for the ocean. (New York Times)

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Dec 1 2024

This startup is getting closer to bringing next-generation nuclear to the grid

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

This is a busy time of year for all of us, and that’s certainly true in the advanced nuclear industry.

MIT Technology Review released our list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch less than two months ago. Since then, awardee Kairos Power has had three big announcements about its progress toward building next-generation nuclear reactors.

Each of these bits of news represents an interesting aspect of the process. So let’s dig into the announcements and what they mean for where nuclear technology is going.

First, a quick refresher on Kairos Power: While nuclear plants today overwhelmingly use pressurized water to keep reactors cool, Kairos is using molten salt. The idea is that these reactors (which are also smaller than those typically built today) will help generate electricity in a way that’s safer and more efficient than conventional nuclear power.

When it comes to strategy, Kairos is taking small steps toward the ultimate goal of full-size power plants. Construction began earlier this year on Hermes, the company’s first nuclear test reactor. That facility will generate a small amount of heat—about 35 megawatts’ worth—to demonstrate the technology.

Last week, the company announced it received a construction permit for the next iteration of its system, Hermes 2. This plant will share a location with Hermes, and it will include the infrastructure to transform heat to electricity. That makes it the first electricity-producing next-generation nuclear plant to get this approval in the US.

While this news wasn’t a huge surprise (the company has been working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for years), “any day that you’re getting a permit or a license from the NRC is an unusual and special day,” Kairos CEO Mike Laufer told me in an interview.

The company is developing a plan to work on construction for both Hermes and Hermes 2 at the same time, he added. When I asked if Hermes is still on track to start up in 2027 (as we reported in our profile of the company in October), Laufer said that’s an “aggressive timeline.”

While construction on test reactors is rolling, Kairos is forging ahead with commercial deals—in October, it announced an agreement with Google to build up to 500 megawatts’ worth of power plants by 2035. Under this agreement, Kairos will develop, construct, and operate plants and sell electricity to the tech giant.

Kairos will need to build multiple reactors to deliver 500 MW. The first deployment should happen by 2030, with additional units to follow. One of the benefits of building smaller reactors is learning as you go along and making improvements that can lower costs and make construction more efficient, Laufer says.

While the construction permit and Google deal are arguably the biggest recent announcements from Kairos, I’m also fascinated by a more niche milestone: In early October, the company broke ground on a salt production facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that will make the molten salt used to cool its reactors.

“Salt is one of the key areas where we do have some unique and specialized needs,” Laufer says. And having control over the areas of the supply chain that are specialized will be key to helping the company deliver electricity reliably and at lower cost, he adds.

The company’s molten salt is called Flibe, and it’s a specific mix of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. One fun detail I learned from Laufer is that the mixture needs to be enriched in lithium-7 because that isotope absorbs fewer neutrons than lithium-6, allowing the reactor to run more efficiently. The new facility in Albuquerque will produce large quantities of high-purity Flibe enriched in lithium-7.

Progress in the nuclear industry can sometimes feel slow, with milestones few and far between, so it’s really interesting to see Kairos taking so many small steps in quick succession toward delivering on its promise of safe, cheap nuclear power.

“We’ve had a lot of huge accomplishments. We have a long way to go,” Laufer says. “This is not an easy thing to pull off. We believe we have the right approach and we’re doing it the right way, but it requires a lot of hard work and diligence.”

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Donald Trump pledged to enact tariffs on a wide range of products imported into the US. The plans could drive up the cost of batteries, EVs, and more, threatening to slow progress on climate and potentially stall the economy. Read more about the potential impacts for technology in the latest story from my colleague James Temple.

Keeping up with climate

The UN climate talks wrapped up over the weekend. In the resulting agreement, rich nations will provide at least $300 billion in climate finance per year by 2035 to developing nations to help them deal with climate change. (Carbon Brief)
→ This falls well short of the $1 trillion mark that many had hoped to reach. (MIT Technology Review)

Utilities might be spending a lot of money on the wrong transmission equipment on the grid. Dollars are flowing to smaller, local projects, not the interstate projects that are crucial for getting more clean energy online. (Inside Climate News)

Sustainable aviation fuel is one of the only viable options to help clean up the aviation industry in the near term. But what are these fuels, exactly? And how do they help with climate change? It’s surprisingly complicated, and the details matter. (Canary Media)

Automakers want Trump to keep rules in place that will push the US toward adoption of electric vehicles. Companies have already invested billions of dollars into an EV transition. (New York Times)

There’s a growing chasm in American meat consumption: The number of households that avoid meat has increased slightly, but all other households have increased their meat purchases. (Vox)

Trump has vowed to halt offshore wind energy, but for some projects, things take so long that a four-year term may not even touch them. (Grist)

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Nov 22 2024

China’s complicated role in climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

“Well, what about China?”

This is a comment I get all the time on the topic of climate change, both in conversations and on whatever social media site is currently en vogue. Usually, it comes in response to some statement about how the US and Europe are addressing the issue (or how they need to be).

Sometimes I think people ask this in bad faith. It’s a rhetorical way to throw up your hands, imply that the US and Europe aren’t the real problem, and essentially say: “if they aren’t taking responsibility, why should we?” However, amid the playground-esque finger-pointing there are some undeniable facts: China emits more greenhouse gases than any other country, by far. It’s one of the world’s most populous countries and a climate-tech powerhouse, and its economy is still developing.

With many complicated factors at play, how should we think about the country’s role in addressing climate change?

China’s emissions are the highest in the world, topping 12 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency.

There’s context missing if we just look at that one number, as I wrote in my latest story that digs into recent global climate data. Since carbon dioxide hangs around in the atmosphere for centuries, we should arguably consider not just a country’s current emissions, but everything it’s produced over time. If we do that, the US still takes the crown for the world’s biggest climate polluter.

However, China is now in second place, according to a new analysis from Carbon Brief released this week. In 2023, the country exceeded the EU’s 27 member states in historical emissions for the first time.

This reflects a wider trend that we’re seeing around the world: Developing nations are starting to account for a larger fraction of emissions than they used to. In 1992, when countries agreed to the UN climate convention, industrialized countries (a category called Annex I) made up about one-fifth of the world’s population but were responsible for a whopping 61% of historical emissions. By the end of 2024, though, those countries’ share of global historical emissions will fall to 52%, and it is expected to keep ticking down.

China, like all nations, will need to slash its emissions for the world to meet global climate goals. One crucial point here is that while its emissions are still huge, there are signs that the nation is making some progress.

China’s carbon dioxide’s emissions are set to fall in 2024 because of record growth in low-carbon energy sources. That decline is projected to continue under the country’s current policy settings, according to an October report from the IEA. China’s oil demand could soon peak and start to fall, largely because it’s seeing such a huge uptake of electric vehicles.

One growing question: With all this progress and a quickly growing economy, should we be expecting China to do more than just make progress on its own emissions?

As I wrote in the newsletter last week, the current talks at COP29 (the UN climate conference) are focused on setting a new, more aggressive global climate finance goal to help developing nations address climate change. China isn’t part of the group of countries that are required to pay into this pot of money, but some are calling for that to change given that it is the world’s biggest polluter.

One interesting point here—China already contributes billions of dollars in climate financing each year to developing countries, according to research published earlier this month by the World Resources Institute. The country’s leadership has said it will only make voluntary contributions, and that developed nations should still be the ones responsible for mandatory payments under the new finance goals.

Talks at COP29 aren’t going very well. The COP29 president called for faster action, but progress toward a finance deal has stalled amid infighting over how much money should be on the table and who should pay up.

China’s complex role in emissions and climate action is far from the only holdup at the talks. Leaders from major nations including Germany and France canceled plans to attend, and the looming threat that the US could pull out of the Paris climate agreement is coloring the negotiations.

But disagreement over how to think about China’s role in all this is a good example of how difficult it is to assign responsibility when it comes to climate change, and how much is at play in global climate negotiations. One thing I do know for sure is that pointing fingers doesn’t cut emissions.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Keeping up with climate

Fusion energy has been a dream for decades, and a handful of startups say we’re closer than ever to making it a reality. This deep dive looks at a few of the companies looking to be the first to deploy fusion power. (New York Times)
→ I recently visited one of the startups, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. (MIT Technology Review)

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy. Wright is head of the fracking company Liberty Energy. (Washington Post)

In the wake of Trump’s election, it might be time for climate tech to get a rebrand. Companies and investors might increasingly avoid using the term, opting instead for phrases like “energy independence” or “frontier tech,” to name a few. (Heatmap)

Rooftop solar has saved customers in California about $2.3 billion on utility bills this year, according to a new analysis. This result is counter to a report from a state agency, which found that rooftop panels impose over $8 billion in extra costs on consumers of the state’s three major utilities. (Canary Media)

Low-carbon energy needs much less material than it used to. Rising efficiency in making technology like solar panels bodes well for hopes of cutting mining needs. (Sustainability by Numbers)

New York governor Kathy Hochul has revived a plan to implement congestion pricing, which would charge drivers to enter the busiest parts of Manhattan. It would be the first such program in the US. (The City)

Enhanced geothermal technology could be close to breaking through into commercial success. Companies that aim to harness Earth’s heat for power are making progress toward deploying facilities. (Nature)
→ Fervo Energy found that its wells can be used like a giant underground battery. (MIT Technology Review)

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Nov 16 2024

What’s on the table at this year’s UN climate conference

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

It’s time for a party—the Conference of the Parties, that is. Talks kicked off this week at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Running for a couple of weeks each year, the global summit is the largest annual meeting on climate change.

The issue on the table this time around: Countries need to agree to set a new goal on how much money should go to developing countries to help them finance the fight against climate change. Complicating things? A US president-elect whose approach to climate is very different from that of the current administration (understatement of the century).

This is a big moment that could set the tone for what the next few years of the international climate world looks like. Here’s what you need to know about COP29 and how Donald Trump’s election is coloring things.

The UN COP meetings are an annual chance for nearly 200 nations to get together to discuss (and hopefully act on) climate change. Greatest hits from the talks include the Paris Agreement, a 2015 global accord that set a goal to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels.

This year, the talks are in Azerbaijan, a petrostate if there ever was one. Oil and gas production makes up over 90% of the country’s export revenue and nearly half its GDP as of 2022. A perfectly ironic spot for a global climate summit!

The biggest discussion this year centers on global climate finance—specifically, how much of it is needed to help developing countries address climate change and adapt to changing conditions. The current goal, set in 2009, is for industrialized countries to provide $100 billion each year to developing nations. The deadline was 2020, and that target was actually met for the first time in 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which keeps track of total finance via reports from contributing countries. Currently, most of that funding is in the form of public loans and grants.

The thing is, that $100 billion number was somewhat arbitrary—in Paris in 2015, countries agreed that a new, larger target should be set in 2025 to take into account how much countries actually need.

It’s looking as if the magic number is somewhere around $1 trillion each year. However, it remains to be seen how this goal will end up shaking out, because there are disagreements about basically every part of this. What should the final number be? What kind of money should count—just public funds, or private investments as well? Which nations should pay? How long will this target stand? What, exactly, would this money be going toward?

Working out all those details is why nations are gathering right now. But one shadow looming over these negotiations is the impending return of Donald Trump.

As I covered last week, Trump’s election will almost certainly result in less progress on cutting emissions than we might have seen under a more climate-focused administration. But arguably an even bigger deal than domestic progress (or lack thereof) will be how Trump shifts the country’s climate position on the international stage.

The US has emitted more carbon pollution into the atmosphere than any other country, it currently leads the world in per capita emissions, and it’s the world’s richest economy. If anybody should be a leader at the table in talks about climate finance, it’s the US. And yet, Trump is coming into power soon, and we’ve all seen this film before.

Last time Trump was in office, he pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement. He’s made promises to do it again—and could go one step further by backing out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether. If leaving the Paris Agreement is walking away from the table, withdrawing from the UNFCCC is like hopping on a rocket and blasting in a different direction. It’s a more drastic action and could be tougher to reverse in the future, though experts also aren’t sure if Trump could technically do this on his own.

The uncertainty of what happens next in the US is a cloud hanging over these negotiations. “This is going to be harder because we don’t have a dynamic and pushy and confident US helping us on climate action,” said Camilla Born, an independent climate advisor and former UK senior official at COP26, during an online event last week hosted by Carbon Brief.

Some experts are confident that others will step up to fill the gap. “There are many drivers of climate action beyond the White House,” said Mohamed Adow, founding director of Power Shift Africa, at the CarbonBrief event.

If I could characterize the current vibe in the climate world, it’s uncertainty. But the negotiations over the next couple of weeks could provide clues to what we can expect for the next few years. Just how much will a Trump presidency slow global climate action? Will the European Union step up? Could this cement the rise of China as a climate leader? We’ll be watching it all.

Now read the rest of The Spark

Another thing

Trump’s election will have significant ripple effects across the economy and our lives. His victory is a tragic loss for climate progress, as my colleague James Temple wrote in an op-ed last week. Give it a read, if you haven’t already, to dig into some of the potential impacts we might see over the next four years and beyond.

Keeping up with climate

The US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule to fine oil and gas companies for methane emissions. The fee was part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. (Associated Press)
→ This rule faces a cloudy future under the Trump administration; industry groups are already talking about repealing it. (NPR)

Speaking of the EPA, Donald Trump chose Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, to lead the agency. Zeldin isn’t particularly known for climate or economic policy. (New York Times)

Oil giant BP is scaling back its early-stage hydrogen projects. The company revealed in an earnings report that it’s canceling 18 such projects and currently plans to greenlight between five and 10. (TechCrunch)

Investors betting against renewable energy scored big last week, earning nearly $1.2 billion as stocks in that sector tumbled. (Financial Times)

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are taking over the world, or at least electric vehicles. These lithium-ion batteries are cheaper and longer-lasting than their nickel-containing cousins, though they also tend to be heavier. (Canary Media)
→ I wrote about this trend last year in a newsletter about batteries and their ingredients. (MIT Technology Review)

The US unveiled plans to triple its nuclear energy capacity by 2050. That’s an additional 200 gigawatts’ worth of consistently available power. (Bloomberg)

Five subsea cables that can help power millions of homes just got the green light in Great Britain. The projects will help connect the island to other power grids, as well as to offshore wind farms in Dutch and Belgian waters. (The Guardian)

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Will states be able to set their own rules on electric vehicles?

What will happen to wind projects?

What about the money?

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Green steel

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